According to GCU News, the university is launching two new colleges — a move aimed directly at addressing regional trade shortages and training a new generation of legal professionals. This will be the university’s eleventh and twelfths colleges.
With the announcement of the new colleges, GCU President Brian Mueller said that during a time “when higher education is facing enormous disruption and uncertainty, GCU continues to grow because students and families are looking for something different.” He says these people want an education that is grounded in Christian worldview principles and is preparing them for a meaningful career.
The academic additions come as GCU reports a total enrollment of 141,000 students, all while maintaining an 18-year tuition freeze on its main Phoenix campus.
Mueller tells AFN the first expansion targets advanced manufacturing, construction and electrical trades through the newly minted College of Construction and Industrial Technologies.
He says these fast-track certificate programs are already yielding immediate real-world results.
"Students are stepping right out of those programs without any debt and right into a middle-class job," Mueller says.
He highlights that nationwide labor deficits in technical sectors are putting major infrastructure projects at risk, making scalable workforce development critical.
At the same time, GCU is taking steps to establish a scalable College of Law. Addressing critics who question the need for another legal program, Mueller argues that modern legal education needs a return to foundational principles — combining a free-market economy with a Judeo-Christian perspective.
"When you combine that free market economic thinking with putting the needs of others in front of your own, it produces a very, very powerful level of prosperity," Mueller states.
He envisions a law program designed to serve both high-demand sectors and underserved rural communities across Arizona and the Southwest.
"We intend it to be one of the largest law schools in the country," Mueller says.
